Chapter One

Loncey

The nurse is giving me that look – the one with slightly raised eyebrows and knowing eyes - the look that says, I've seen your dick before. I know exactly what it looks like.

She's a subscriber.

Four years ago, I would have looked at her name and tried to guess which one of my hundred or so subscribers she was, and I would have spent a few minutes wondering what drew her to my particular brand of ethical porn. Is it because I'm as non-binary and queer as the almond matcha latte I just finished? Is it because she likes Big Black Cocks? Is it because she likes fruity Doms who are all about consent?

Or maybe I'm not giving her enough credit. Is it because she likes the occasional talking video I do discussing certain elements of kink, of consent and of good communication during intimacy? That's what I would have questioned once upon a time but now it's not only impossible to know which one of my seventeen thousand paying subscribers she is, I'm also too damn busy to wonder why she signed up. Because honestly, I don't care. I can ignore these looks just as easily as I can forget thousands of people have seen my penis, watched me fuck in all kinds of kinky, dirty, base ways. Besides, now is not the time to be thinking about that, no matter what look the nurse is giving me. Now is not the time to be thinking about anything but Jessica.

My sister is lying in the bed I'm sitting beside. She's hooked up to an IV and a patient monitor that I am closely watching as the nurse also monitors it, Jessica's paperwork on the clipboard in her hand. I'll give her a few more minutes, and then I'll ask her about the results of Jessica's restrictive spirometry tests. Then again, if I don't, if I just wait until she or a doctor can come by, maybe Jess will be able to get some sleep.

My phone starts to vibrate in my pocket and I move to stand near the window before answering it. It's no surprise that it's my mom.

"Hey, Momma."

"Hey, Lawrence. How is she?"

"She's…" I look over at my sister. Her thin body is swamped by the bed. Deep purple semi-circles hang under her eyes and her light brown skin is sallow. Her chest heaves as each breath comes with some level of struggle. Finally, I check the monitor again, understanding instantly. "She's stable."

"You need me to come down there?"

"No. You've been working all night and half the day. You need some rest. I'll call you if anything changes here, but hopefully, if her PFTs come back okay, we'll be able to go home once these antibiotics are done."

Mom sighs. "I appreciate you, Lawrence."

My jaw hardens. "I appreciate you too, Mom. But we've got to talk about what happened. She should not have been at that festival."

"I know, I know. But she was so desperate to go. I wanted her to go, to be like a normal twenty-six-year-old for once. Taylor promised me she'd look after her and—"

I turn my head to peer out of the window, not wanting the nurse or Jessica to hear what I say next as I interrupt through gritted teeth. "The fact you both chose to keep it from me speaks volumes."

"I know. It was wrong. But you know, Taylor did look after her."

"As she should. She's her best friend!" Unable to keep my voice low, I grab a quick peek at Jessica, who doesn't seem to have moved, her eyes still closed.

"We don't even know if she got this infection from the festival yesterday or from something else."

"Really? Really?" I say, making my disbelief very audible.

"Lawrence, baby, don't give me a hard time. Or your sister. Let's just get her better, get her home and we'll talk."

"Fine."

"Thank you again," Mom says, her voice softer. "I mean that."

"I know. I'll call you when I have an update."

After hanging up the phone, I glance out of the window again. There's no view. I'm just looking into another hospital room in another wing of the vast medical center we're in. I count the windows of the building directly opposite and realize we've been in this room before. It shouldn't surprise me – we average two or three hospital visits a year with my sister's mutation of cystic fibrosis – but it gets to me nonetheless. I wish this wasn't her reality. I wish this wasn't her life.

"I'm fine." Jessica's voice makes me turn around. The nurse is in the same position, but she's now taking Jessica's pulse the old-fashioned way, which is pointless considering all the machines Jessica's hooked up to. I'm starting to wonder whether she's hanging around for me rather than Jess. Maybe I should just offer to sign her scrubs or something.

As I walk toward my sister, I cock my eyebrow at her. She reacts exactly how I expect; a quick tut and an eye-roll that has her gaze leaving me and looking out of the window.

"I am," she insists.

"We wouldn't be here if you were fine," I mumble, and when the words leave a bitter taste in my mouth, I'm almost pleased. I shouldn't have said it. It's a misplaced comment at best and downright insensitive at worst.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll just go back in time and magically make sure my mother doesn't have sex with a waste-of-space white man who unknowingly carried a mutated gene."

I tsk her sullen sarcasm and sit back in my chair, folding my arms across my chest. "Well, while you're there, try and stop her doing the same thing with my so-called father. Thanks to his mutated genes and aversion to responsibility, that man has added nothing to my life but a whole lot of stress."

That gets a small smile of solidarity out of my sister, and then we both look at the nurse, who is trying to manage the alarmed expression on her face but failing.

"Sorry," I say to her. She is a subscriber, after all. "We'll save our childhood trauma for a family therapy session."

It's Jessica's turn to tut. "They're bullshitting you," she says. "We don't do family therapy. We bottle it up like normal people."

What Jessica is saying isn't strictly true, at all. I've been in and out of therapy for years to come to terms with an absent father among other things, and she's had a lot of counseling over the years to help her manage her CF. Our mother has read more spiritual awakening and self-help books than anyone I know, and she has done more than a few training courses on perinatal maternal health for her job as a doula-midwife. But have we ever all sat down in the same room and aired our dirty laundry? No, we haven't.

And honestly, I don't feel like we have to. We do okay, Jessica, our mother, and me. In fact, we do better than okay.

"We don't need therapy," I say. "At least, not as a family. We just need to have better communication about where you're going and what you're doing."

Jessica's dark brown eyes level on me, as sharp as daggers. "I told you what I was doing, where I was going."

"You said you were going out to see Taylor. You said you would be staying over at her house."

"I did go out to see Taylor and I did stay over at her house. I just went to a festival in the middle."

I shudder at the reminder. All those people. All those germs. All the crowds and noise and a million ways Jessica wouldn't have been able to get out quickly had she needed to, not to mention the toll on her body from doing whatever she was doing there – dancing, singing, drinking. But then I look at my little sister, ten whole years my junior, and I see the thoughtful smile on her face. I see the stubborn few speckles of glitter that remain from the body art she came home with. I see her braids still tied up in pigtails on either side of her head, a hairstyle that I can vividly imagine Taylor spending hours doing for her. I see the way her thoughts have drifted from this room, back to Las Vegas Festival Grounds and whatever songs made her dance the most.

"Was it fun?" I ask, still watching her.

She turns to me, everything about her face soft. "Yeah, it was." She lifts the arm where her IV is. "I know you don't believe me, Loncey, but it was almost worth this to feel normal for a few hours. To feel like I'm a real twenty-six-year-old, like all the other twenty-six-year-olds, rather than an overgrown teenager who still lives at home with her mother."

"And cool older brother!"

Her smile deepens. "I do like how I can still call you brother."

I shrug. "Brother is gender neutral as far as I'm concerned."

"So you don't hate me?" Jessica asks, and I can tell the fight has gone. She's tired.

"Of course I don't hate you. I never would, never could, and believe me, when we were younger, I tried."

"No, you didn't. You've always been the perfect big brother, Loncey. The number of hangs you let me crash, the dates you let me go along with you. All through your teens and then later, when you were actually serious about the girls and guys. You never shooed me away, even though I know I was so annoying."

"You weren't annoying." I laugh gently. "You were kind of useful, in fact. People thought it was cute, me hanging out with you."

"Are you saying I helped you get laid?" She pulls a disgusted face.

I shrug again, this time smiling mischievously, lost in my own memories. "I'm saying a lot of my dates loved you as much as they did me."

"Like Geneva," Jessica muses.

My body instantly tenses. "Yeah, like Geneva."

If Jessica picks up on the tightness in my voice or torso, she doesn't let on. And why should she? She doesn't know the full story of what happened between us. It would have only upset her. "Anyway, it's not like you need my help now," she scoffs.

I feel the nurse's eyes on me and I pull my phone out so I can avoid her gaze. I deliberately don't respond until she's left the room.

"It's a bit different now," I say, lifting my eyes up.

But Jessica doesn't reply. She's lying still on the bed, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted, and fast asleep.

I breathe a sigh of relief at the sight. I watch her chest rise and fall for a few minutes. As always, they're labored breaths, but they're regular and not noticeably more strained than usual.

I open the Notes app on my phone and set about writing a list of all the things I can do on my phone while Jessica is sleeping. Sure, it would have been smarter to have brought my laptop with me when we left for the hospital but time was very much of the essence and getting any kind of work done while she's resting is a bonus, not the purpose of being here.

I start writing my list.

It's a lot. A long list. A never-ending list, truth be told. And these are the things I can do only from my phone. It doesn't include the hours of editing I need to do to turn it footage into videos and trailers and sneak peeks for my MyFans page and social media. It doesn't include the many times I go Live on social media answering fans' questions. It doesn't include the hours of content creation I have to do each week just to keep the algorithms favoring me, old fans engaging with me, and new subscribers finding me. It doesn't include the private request videos I do. It doesn't include the essence of the actual work I do, namely having sex and masturbating on camera.

And that's not mentioning the work that goes on behind the scenes. The daily gym visits to keep my body not only looking a certain way that my fans like, but also keeping it healthy and physically able to do the work. The chatting with other sex workers to share information about content creators who may be causing problems or not getting tested or treating their partners with the respect and care they deserve. The traveling to and from collaborations, which often includes journeys interstate. The deleting of abusive, racist, and queerphobic messages that sneak into my inboxes nearly every single day despite countless keyword filters.

But it's all worth it. It's all completely worth it because I earn the kind of money I once dreamed of. The kind of money that covers the best health insurance I could find for my whole family. The kind of money that means my mother can do the work she enjoys, not overwork herself into the ground juggling three or four jobs like she used to. The kind of money that means we can fix our house when it needs it. The kind of money that keeps our fridge fully stocked, all the time, which was something that wasn't always true when I was growing up. The kind of money that can provide whatever care my sister needs, whenever she needs it.

I'm halfway through answering direct messages from my MyFans subscribers when an incoming message pops up on the screen. It's from Harley, one of my regular collaborators and, until about four months ago, one of my long-term partners.

Down for a BXG? Pablo Ferrasco is flying in from Rio for two weeks next month. He's requesting you personally.>

The name rings a bell, but I have to switch apps to Twitter to find a profile and refresh my memory.

He's tall, sculpted, and has tan skin. He has dark eyes, short curly hair, and a very long brown dick, which curves slightly up.

Fuck, yes, I'm down for that.

Who can vouch for him?> I text back.

Harley replies in less than a minute. I can. We've fucked before, remember? We kept in touch. But also, I'm taking him to get tested the day he lands, so yes, I will vouch for him. He fucks so good, L. I just came so hard based on a video he just sent me.>

I roll my eyes but also huff out a soft laugh. It doesn't take much to get my horny little Harley worked up. I miss that about her. I miss her bronze-colored skin and her tight curls she dyes different colors depending on her mood. I miss her small breasts, her tight round ass, and slim hips, even though I get to play with them all fairly regularly. What I don't miss is the moods she would often slip into unpredictably, or how she swore that washing dishes or cleaning bathrooms were against her religion. Such a typical Libra moon.

Set it up.> Before I go back to my DMs, I type another text. Wait, why are you asking me and not Miko?>

Miko is her partner, also my ex-partner. We were a trio for a few years but I separated from our open poly relationship about four months ago after I saw our petty arguments threatening what was a valuable friendship and profitable working relationship. Miko is second-generation Polish American, short and stocky with the bluest eyes I've ever seen. Like Harley, he's trans and also a sex worker. It's how we all met.

We're on a break.>

I groan. Again?>

He asked for one, not me.>

That's unusual. Harley always called the shots, which, I admit, was also possibly something I wasn't very good at accepting. Or rather, my Taurus rising was less than accommodating to it.

I frown, wondering briefly why Miko made that decision. A typical Sagittarius sun and Capricorn moon, he's one of the most level-headed people I know, and has always been much better at dealing with Harley's lack of desire to do domestic chores than I ever was.

Are you okay?> I ask her. I joke about them being on-again, off-again but really I know how much they love each other.

Totally fine. Going to read more of Pablo's filthy texts and get myself off again. Then I've got nail, wax and micro-blading appointments. It's basically the best day ever.>

Someone else would think that getting the majority of their lower body waxed would be a hell of a day, but I know there was no sarcasm in Harley's text, my little pain addict.

Keep me posted about Pablo. The collab. Not the videos and orgasms.>

Will do. And let's hang soon, please. I miss you.>

I miss you too.>

And I do. Being with Harley and Miko had been a good time. We were all happily polyamorous and didn't have to work too hard to navigate the challenges that came up with that, even when I specifically said I didn't want to move into their place. I made it clear I'd never want to live with them, or any other partner, and they, in turn, never saw that as strange. They gave me the space I needed to be alone when I needed it – because I do like to be alone – and they understood perfectly that Jessica was my number one priority. It had also been incredibly convenient for filming content too.

But I broke up with them for a reason. They were intense. Miko claimed to be a switch but he fought me for dominance in the bedroom a little too often, although he never could deal with Harley's bratty moods as well as I could. He just often didn't have the energy, but that only made her act up more. I wonder if that's where this latest break had come from. Has he simply run out of energy for her bratty comments?

A smile curls one side of my mouth as I think about how much fun it was taking Harley in hand after she spoke out of turn one too many times, resulting in her feeling the grip of one of my belts around her neck while another lashed her ass bright red.

That had been the fun side of our relationship.

But it had also been exhausting.

Relationships are exhausting. They're work. They're time away from working on myself and my business. They're time away from Jessica.

I'm better on my own, doing my own thing. I always thought polyamory would give me the freedom I've come to crave in the last few years as I became more successful in this job, and it does go a long way to give me that, but truthfully, any kind of relationship feels suffocating and limiting. Any kind of relationship threatens to disrupt this good life I've worked so hard to create.

I look back at my sleeping sister and that's all the motivation I need to get back to replying to DMs, which I finish quickly. Likewise, I wrap up all the emails I need to urgently send in less than fifteen minutes and I'm moving on to the next item on my list when another message notification pops up. It's a forwarded video and message from Harley.

I know you told me not to bother you with this but you need to know what you're getting yourself into. Volume up.>

The video is frozen in a random screenshot and that is enough to tell me exactly what the clip is of. There's nothing but blurred olive skin and the pinky-brown mushroom head of an erect cock.

"Jesus, Harley," I mumble and flash another look at my sister who hasn't moved.

My first thought is to swipe away and go back to my list. But my curiosity is piqued. Thinking about Harley and her bratty moods, Miko and his cool confidence, and now, Pablo and his curved dick, has me feeling a little horny. And I like feeling horny. I like it very much.

I dig in my pocket and find my earpods. I pop one of them in my ear and then hold my phone up so it's right in front of my face. I lick my lips, slide down a little in the chair and click play.

"Fuck, baby, yes." Pablo's accented voice is soft and deep, like a gravelly purr. "You feel so good. You feel so fucking good."

His accent catches the end of each word and it's adorable, which is a strange thing to think when he's pulling on his dick so hard and tight, it looks like it could come right off his naked body.

In my ears, Pablo whimpers. Then he moans. He actually moans.

Hot blood rushes to my cock.

Oh, he's good. He's really good, I think to myself with a knowing smirk.

I switch it off then and pull the plug out of my ear.

I'll wait for the real thing.> I text back to Harley.

And when she doesn't reply immediately, I imagine her lying in her bed, hand busy between her legs, and my smile deepens.

Chuckling lightly to myself, I have another one of those moments I have occasionally. It's what I call a How-Is-This-My-Life Moment, because that's exactly the thought that's charging through my mind.

I get paid to have sex, a lot of sex, with a lot of people, a lot of beautiful people.

I shake my head and open the browser on my phone to book a sexual health test for next week so I can be clean and safe when finding out what it's like when Pablo is whimpering like that in my ear. I may not quite believe that this is my life, but I will tell you something, I fucking love my life.

I. Fucking. Love. My. Life.